Homer Simpson Ponders Politics

It is often said that the poet Homer "educated" ancient Greece. Joseph J. Foy and Timothy M. Dale have assembled a team of notable scholars who argue, quite persuasively, that Homer Simpson and his ilk are educating America and offering insights into the social order and the human condition. Following Homer Simpson Goes to Washington (winner of the John G. Cawelti Award for Best Textbook or Primer on American and Popular Culture) and Homer Simpson Marches on Washington, this exceptional volume reveals how books like J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter, movies like Avatar and Star Wars, and television shows like The Office and Firefly define Americans' perceptions of society. The authors expand the discussion to explore the ways in which political theories play out in popular culture. Homer Simpson Ponders Politics includes a foreword by fantasy author Margaret Weis (coauthor/creator of the Dragonlance novels and game world) and is divided according to eras and themes in political thought: The first section explores civic virtue, applying the work of Plato and Aristotle to modern media. Part 2 draws on the philosophy of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Smith as a framework for understanding the role of the state. Part 3 explores the work of theorists such as Kant and Marx, and the final section investigates the ways in which movies and newer forms of electronic media either support or challenge the underlying assumptions of the democratic order. The result is an engaging read for undergraduate students as well as anyone interested in popular culture.

Cover

Title Page

Contents

Foreword

That ancient storyteller was an entertainer. He made the members of
his tribe forget that they were shivering with cold or wondering where they
might find the next meal. But he was doing more than entertaining. Through
his tales, the storyteller was passing on tribal traditions, maintaining...

Introduction: Popular Culture as Political Theory: Plato, Aristotle, and
Homer

In 1987 Jim Henson, most famous, of course, for his Muppets, created and
produced the first installment of The Storyteller. Combining live acting and
puppetry, Henson used this award-winning television series to recreate myth
narratives from around the world and, in the process, remind...

Part 1. Classical Insights and Civic Virtue

1. A Tale of Two Republics: Plato, Palpatine, and Politics

One doesn’t often hear the names Plato and George Lucas uttered in the
same sentence. We could muse, I suppose, that if the former solidified
the intellectual importance of the ancient Greeks, the other solidified the
cultural importance of modern geeks. But deeper connections exist, if one...

2. Aristotle’s Politics and the Virtues of Springfield: Community,
Education, and Friendship in The Simpsons

The title sequence for The Simpsons television series has become a cultural
icon. White clouds move in a bright blue sky, and the unmistakable yellow
lettering emerges from behind the clouds as a chorus sings the name of the
family after which the show is named. The scene then moves down from...

In Mario Puzo’s bestselling novel The Godfather, published in 1969, he told
the story of a fictional mafia family in America. The book was famously made
into a successful and award-winning film, The Godfather (1972), as well as
a sequel-prequel, The Godfather Part II (1974), and a sequel...

Part 2. The State, the Individual, and Political Morality

4. Social Contract: Rebellion and Dissent aboard Serenity

The major plot of Serenity, the companion movie to Joss Whedon’s TV series
Firefly, pits the crew of the spaceship Serenity against their interplanetary
government, the Alliance. River Tam (Summer Glau), a member of the crew
who begins as a stowaway, was severely damaged while at an Alliance school...

5. Dwight Schrute and Servile Ambition: Tacitus and Rousseau on the
Lackey Politics of The Office

Much of the brilliance of the first few seasons of NBC’s comedy The Office
was derived, quite simply, from pathology. Leading the maladjustment was
Regional Manager Michael Scott, whose frequent missteps resulted from a
highly insecure and narcissistic personality. This made him capable of every...

6. Who Watches the Watchmen? Kant, Mill, and Political Morality in the
Shadow of Manhattan

Watchmen is arguably the most revolutionary graphic novel ever written.
It showed a generation of readers that a so-called super-hero comic book
could engage a sophisticated adult audience and deal with complex moral
and political issues. At the heart of the text is a classic quandary: is it ever...

Part 3. The Limitations and Possibilities of Political Life

7. Avatar, Marx, and the Alienation of Labor

Have you ever had a lousy job? A job that sucked the life out of you, ground
you down, made you feel like a cog in the impersonal machinery of paying
rent and staying fed? Philosophically speaking, Karl Marx remains the expert
on what makes a lousy job lousy. It’s an experience common to everyone...

8. Nietzschean Narratives of Hero and Herd in Walt Disney/Pixar’s The
Incredibles

In the penultimate scene of Pixar/Walt Disney’s animated film The Incredibles,
ten-year-old superhero Dash Parr is about to run a sprint race in
his elementary school’s track meet. As the race begins, his parents buoyantly
cheer him on. “Run, Dash, run!!” they yell excitedly—and, glancing up at...

Welcome to Hogwarts! At this school of witchcraft and wizardry, magical
boys and girls will learn to hone their potential in spell-casting, potionmaking,
divination, and the mystical arts. They will learn how to fly on
brooms, play Quidditch, and duel with wands, and they will be taught the...

10. Feminism, Sexism, and the Small Screen: Television’s Complicated
Relationship with Women

Culture critics have argued about the stupidity and dangers of television
almost since the advent of the medium. We’ve been warned against spending
too much time in front of the “boob tube” or the “idiot box” so many
times that we don’t even register the warnings anymore. Some of us read...

Part 4. The Promises and Problems of Liberal Democracy

11. From John Wayne to John McClane: The Hollywood Action Hero and
the Critique of the Liberal State

America is in constant conflict. On one side of the divide rests America’s
political foundation—the philosophy of liberalism and the companion
governing system of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy cherishes the
Enlightenment values of reason, discourse, and compromise and ensures...

12. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again: Recovering a
Platonic-Aristotelian Politics of Friendship in Liberal
Democracy

It is well known that J. R. R. Tolkien’s tales The Hobbit and The Lord of the
Rings have been immensely popular with democratic audiences, from their
publication in the mid-twentieth century to their ongoing adaptation for
the big screen. Perhaps not well known, however, is the surprising extent...

13. “Just Give Them the Internet”: Social Media and the Promise of
Liberal Democracy

On June 6, 2010, Khaled Mohamed Said was sitting at a table on the second
floor of a cybercafé in Sidi Gaber, a neighborhood in Alexandria, Egypt. Two
detectives from the local police station entered the café to arrest Said. After
binding his hands behind his back, one of the detectives smashed...

Acknowledgments

The editors are indebted to the kind support of Anne Dean Watkins, Bailey
E. Johnson, and all the good people of the University Press of Kentucky.
Your support and guidance on this project are enormously appreciated. We
could not ask for a better group of people to work with. We would also like to...

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